This Mother's Choice
by kzal
Summary: We arrange our memories to suit ourselves. That's what the doctor told us about Sarah. A story of loss, told in 13 drabbles.
1. Memory

_The original drabble for this story appeared on the labyfic community on Livejournal in May 2013. The rest follows from that idea. This story is complete in 13 chapters, all drabbles, for a total of exactly 1300 words._

_Labyrinth belongs to Henson & Co. I just play in their sandbox._

* * *

**Memory**

We arrange our memories to suit ourselves. That's what the doctor tells us about Sarah.

She was glowing when we came home that night. She told us what happened: she was angry with her brother for crying, and wished him away to the goblins, but she rescued him and her friends who helped her had just left. She said it with such conviction, I wanted to believe.

But how could I trust such a fantastic tale? I ran to his room, and that's when we found out the truth.

Sarah was angry with my baby boy, and now he's dead.


	2. Diagnosis

**Diagnosis**

The doctors call it SIDS; there's no evidence of shaking. Sarah won't believe he's gone; we find her in his room, calling for him. "The Goblin King returned us," she insists. "He should be here."

The Goblin King. I ask her, at a lucid moment, and she runs upstairs to get me the book, but she can't find it. I remember it, though: a red, leather-bound thing she carried everywhere. I never cared, before, what it was. Just fairy stories.

She tears her room apart looking for it; I help her so she doesn't do the same to the house.


	3. Anger

**Anger**

The saddest thing about a child's funeral is the size of the casket. A living thing hardly feels so small; it is large with potential. That little box, though, is only three feet long. We hold the funeral with the coffin closed; the body inside doesn't look like my Toby.

We have to leave Sarah home; she doesn't understand. We'll have to do something about that. She hasn't been to school since it happened; we'll need to make a permanent decision soon. Robert doesn't want to face it.

I want her out of my house; it hurts to see her.


	4. Grief

**Grief**

Three months later I decide I want to try for another baby. Robert says no, but it isn't his responsibility, is it? He can't quite control things unless he turns me away completely, which he won't do.

But it isn't just our son we mourn. Sarah's in an institution, now. That took a month of convincing, but eventually he saw sense. She doesn't recognize reality, anymore; she talks to a fox and sings about fairies. She has this white dress, and refuses to take it off. All she'll say is she has to save Toby, or that she already did.


	5. Life

**Life**

It takes me eight months to get pregnant. I didn't eat much, the first five; I suppose that didn't help. Nine months later—twenty months since we buried Toby—I have a baby girl. Noelle. She has Robert's dark hair, and I'm glad; it's easier for me that she doesn't look like her brother.

Robert is attentive enough, and holds her when I ask, but there is something that dies in his eyes when he looks at her. There is only one baby picture of Sarah in the house, but I can see the resemblance. Noelle is Sarah in miniature.


	6. Ex-Wife

**Ex-Wife**

Three years pass before Linda bothers to visit Sarah. She tells the receptionist that it's "_Ms._ Williams, darling, don't you know who I am?" and the poor girl is completely intimidated. But she knows me, and now I'm glad I came along, if only for her sake. I'm here at least once a month, usually more often; she knows me.

Linda bustles into Sarah's room, fluttering up to kiss her cheek. Sarah recoils, hiding her face in her hands. "You!" she cries. "You told them about me. Don't touch me!"

It is the only time I ever see Linda cry.


	7. Realist

**Realist**

I don't allow fantasy in my home. Perhaps it didn't cause Sarah's problems, but I can't take that chance. Noelle is all I have, now; even Robert is distant. She reads biography and history and poetry, and mysteries with real solutions. Mysteries are her favorite; perhaps they fill fantasy's role. She does learn some fairy stories at school; I can't prevent that, but I do try to interest her away from it.

We visit Toby once a year, and Sarah once a month. Sarah won't speak to Noelle, but the staff says she talks about her often when we're gone.


	8. Trouble

**Trouble**

On Noelle's twelfth birthday, she tells me she saw a fairy. "I did all the tests, Mom," she says, in her grown-up voice. "I didn't imagine it."

"You must have been dreaming," I tell her, because I can't say anything else.

"I wasn't."

It's her birthday, so I don't punish her, but I tell her not to talk about it.

"But Mom," she says, "the fairy told me that Toby wants to see me." I'm relieved that she's just missing her brother, the brother she should have. That's normal, even if I don't quite trust the way she expresses it.


	9. Changeling

**Changeling**

"I saw a dwarf today, Mom," Noelle tells me, six months later.

"That's not the correct term, honey," I answer. "Say, 'little person.'"

"Not a little person." She rolls her eyes. "Like 'Snow White.'"

Her grandmother Williams read her that story. She doesn't respect my objections. We don't see her often, anymore.

"He called me 'changeling child,'" she says. "What does that mean?"

I don't know; she must have heard the word somewhere. _Changeling_ sounds very ominous. But more importantly, my daughter is still lying about seeing odd creatures. It's not her birthday; I send her to bed without dessert.


	10. Cliché

**Cliché**

Five months later, Robert leaves me for his secretary. So cliché. Noelle doesn't care.

Two weeks later we visit Sarah; I suppose it's just routine, now. When I see her, she grabs both my hands in hers and says, "I'm sorry," like she knows, even though I didn't tell her. When we say goodbye she takes Noelle's face in both hands and kisses her forehead like a benediction.

Noelle meets her eyes, and says, "I know."

On Noelle's thirteenth birthday, I go to wake her, and find her dead, cold.

And remember Sarah's strange behavior, when I saw her last.


	11. Denial

**Denial**

I have to see Sarah. That's all I can think of: if this is really happening, then she was right all along, and she'll know what to do.

As I reach the door, the phone rings. It's her hospital, and suddenly I know. She's gone, too.

I go over to make the arrangements and get her personal effects, and there among her things is the missing book, the one we looked for. _Labyrinth._

The very last page is covered in writing, Toby's name, and Noelle's, and others. At the bottom, there's just one sentence: "I can never remember that line."


	12. Hope

**Hope**

The funerals pass in a blur. Robert steps in to handle it and I'm grateful to him, even though everything hurts. After, I sit down on the graves of my children, two that I carried and one that I loved, and read the book.

It is a typical adventure story, but Sarah believed it was real. She believed it had happened to her. And if it had, what did that mean for my children? Did Noelle see a dwarf, and a fairy, as she told me? Or was it only imagination?

If I'd believed her, would that have changed anything?


	13. Acceptance

**Acceptance**

So much choice is involved in belief. You never think of that until you begin to doubt.

Sarah believed in this book, in a man who stole children, who, perhaps, loved her, or loved someone. Who tied her to him, somehow; who brought her into his power, along with her siblings. I could make myself believe it, and tell myself that my children go on, somewhere, though not with me.

No. I must choose what I've seen, what I know. I saw the bodies of my children; I buried them. I cannot wish them back. I must go on, alone.

* * *

_And there you have it. Thank you for taking this little trip with me! As for the finer details of what happened? Only Jareth knows for sure.  
_


End file.
